Hard to say goodbye

Last night my dad and step mom took Cindy, myself and Katie out to dinner at the Watermark Grille, a place that I had not been to since I went with my mom on our last Mother’s Day together. It felt a little weird/sad as I walked inside.  The feelings passed and all five of us had an enjoyable meal with good food, laughs, and flowing conversations.  Cindy and Teresa had a lot to talk about from their two day adventure down in Key West.  They saw a ton of cool things and got to experience the “unique” culture quite a bit.

After dinner we headed home and just hung out for awhile.  Of course it was sad that dad and Teresa’s visit was coming to an end.  Of course we also were sad to be losing the company of Maggie and Clara who provided all of us with tons of smiles along the way.  The dog/chicken issue was never a big deal.  We mostly walked the dogs in the front yard and allowed them in the back yard a few times while the chickens were in their coop.

Despite all of us not being late night people I found that pretty much every night of their visit I was up later than normal, hence why I feel rather sleepy today.  This morning the Outback was loaded up so they could get an early start on the first leg of their journey home.  They are planning to get to Brunswick Georgia.

Everyone handed out the hugs and well wishes.  Clara really did not seem to want to hit the road.  After she had been loaded in the car once she hopped back out to me and stood between my legs where I gave her one more pet and kiss on the head.  It was very sweet.  As they backed out of the driveway and slowly pulled away I had a small tear in my eye as I saw Maggie looking back at me from the back window and Clara doing the same perched on Teresa’s lap.

Since our family became geographically diverse years ago this scenario has played out many times so I should be used to it by now but it never feels good.  I spent much more time chilling during their visit than I did my first staycation three weeks ago so I guess that’s a good thing.

Of course I have not wasted any time placing my nose back to the grindstone.  I showered and headed into work to do prep for our Office 365 migration that I will be tackling over the weekend.  I am hoping that most of the in office work can be handled this evening with doing more remotely over the remainder of the weekend.  It’s a tricky process but I am hoping I have all my ducks lined up in a row.

I am hoping to have enough free time over the weekend to fix the tractor which appears to have one or more defective idler pulleys in the transmission drive assembly.  It is also Cindy’s birthday weekend so I am sure she would rather have me be around if at all possible.